Works in Progress

REL Midwest conducts research studies and offers training, coaching, and technical
support to address our partners’ research questions, provide policymakers
and practitioners with information they need to make decisions, and build individual
and organizational capacity to understand and use research in education policy and
practice. We invite you to learn about our projects underway.

Works in Progress are posted after project proposals have gone through a rigorous
peer review process.

This study is examining the high school and college outcomes of four consecutive
cohorts of Indiana students. The findings will provide new information on high school
quality by examining the association between attending high schools of different
types—traditional public high schools, public charter high schools, and private
high schools that participate in the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program—and
factors associated with students’ high school completion, college and career
readiness, and early college success.

This study is using existing survey data to describe how educators in rural high
schools use technology for teaching and learning, the challenges they face when
integrating technology, and the factors that support the adoption of technology.
Findings about technology use in rural high schools can inform policymakers in Iowa
and other mostly rural states about these challenges and supporting factors.

In Minnesota, as in many other states, not all students have access to the types
of educational experiences that are likely to lead to high-wage jobs. The Midwest
Career Readiness Research Alliance is investigating the postsecondary pathways of
Minnesota public high school graduates, focusing on opportunity gaps by high school
locale and student characteristics. Drawing on data from Minnesota’s Statewide
Longitudinal Education Data System, this study is examining students’ pathways
immediately following high school graduation and labor market outcomes six years
later.

This study will examine six consecutive cross-sections of English learner students
in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in grades 3–8 from school years
2011/12 through 2016/17. The study will summarize the characteristics of the students
and the features of the schools they attend, then examine the correlations between
student and school characteristics and student performance on state assessments.

This study will examine existing teacher-, school-, and district-level
data from school years 2008/09 to 2015/16 to describe patterns and trends in the
supply and demand of teachers and teacher shortage and surplus in public schools
in Michigan. In addition, the study will project teacher shortage and surplus in
Michigan during the next five years.

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is implementing a new, statewide kindergarten
entry assessment titled Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS). Researchers
in REL Midwest’s Midwest Early Childhood Education Research Alliance (MECERA)
will use quantitative data collected from KIDS to answer research questions about
the psychometric properties of the data, the levels of skills children in Illinois
have at kindergarten entry, and variations in these skills levels across subgroups
and schools. In addition, researchers will collect information on barriers or obstacles
that teachers and principals face during data collection to inform revisions to
state-provided guidance or training.